new ways of doing music business

Transcription

new ways of
doing music
business
Creative Commons & Sound
In May 2008, front man of the noir-rock band
Nine Inch Nails (http://nin.com) Trent Reznor
announced to the world that they were releasing
a second album, The Slip (http://theslip.nin.com),
under a Creative Commons licence, encouraging
fans to download, distribute, and mashup their
work. In doing so, NIN was making an indelible
mark upon the music industry: take note, business
models are on the move.
Offering a flexible framework with which to
manage copyright, CC provides artists with the
opportunity to engage creatively with content.
As early adopters of the flexible CC licences,
musicians demonstrate an increasing interest
in entrepreneurial activities through online and
offline community-based and collaborative
initiatives. Presenting the incentive to ‘Rip.
Sample. Mash. Share,’ in 2004 Wired Magazine
released a CC remixable CD, featuring the
Beastie Boys, David Byrne, Le Tigre and
Gilberto Gil, amongst other artists of note
(http://creativecommons.org/wired). This venture
gave rise to the ccMixter.org online community,
an award-winning project which is currently being
converted into a business spin-off to explore the
commercialisation of user-generated content.
More recently, as the music industry has turned
towards new business models appropriate
to the digital era, several ‘survival strategies’
have been posited by David Byrne (www.wired.
com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/
ff_byrne) and the Open Rights Group in the
United Kingdom (www.openrightsgroup.org/
music business
case studies
Ancient Free Gardeners
11
Andrew Garton
13
Audiophile
16
Jonathan Coulton
17
Creative Commons
Music Collaboration
Project (CCMP)
19
Jamendo
22
Knives at Noon
27
Magnatune
29
Nine Inch Nails
32
Pocketclock Records
35
Postmoderncore
37
Topology
39
Yunyu
41
OpenVoice Free PBX
43
building an
australasian
commons
creativebusiness/index.
php/Main_Page). In
this environment, an
increasing focus has
been placed on CC’s role
in innovative practice.
Pioneering music sites
such as Magnatune (http://
magnatune.com) represent
a concerted effort to
introduce innovation to the
management of content,
combining open access
philosophies with revenueraising mechanisms.
Images: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US, http://theslip.nin.com
10
The downloadable package
for The Slip available from the
Nine Inch Nails website included
the music files for the tracks
accompanied by a PDF of album
artwork. These are four images
from the album artwork.
Building on this innovation,
in December 2007, Creative
Commons outlined its
CC+ framework (http://
wiki.creativecommons.
org/CCPlus), which aims
to encompass both the
sharing and the commercial
economies, offering artists
the ability to relicense their
work non-commercially
whilst retaining the right
for resale to commercial
enterprises. Business
strategies embracing CC are
currently being considered
and implemented by an
ever-increasing series of
sites, including Jamendo,
Beatpick, Strayform,
Youlicense, RightsAgent,
Blip.tv, the Copyright
Clearance Center, and
Cloakx. These models
provide salient illustrations
of different engagements
with commercial practices,
which are continually being
redefined in the effort to
capture the imagination of
online audiences.
The following case studies
underscore the desire of
New Ways of Doing Music Business
independent Australian artists and labels
to connect with their community of fans
through CC licences. Employing CC
as a promotional tool, local musicians
such as anime-inspired pop star Yunyu,
experimental ensemble Topology and
New Zealand synth-rock band Knives
at Noon allow free downloads of their
works for non-commercial purposes,
and offer albums for sale on CD Baby
and Jamendo. Such distribution,
bypassing traditional publishers, has
been embraced as a way of increasing
the bands’ prominence in both local and
international markets. At an international
level, the innovative business approach
expressed by the independent and
idiosyncratic Jonathan Coulton has
been shown to work well in his favour.
His experiment with new ways in
which content can be distributed and
disseminated as a result of the Internet
has born significant fruit, with 45% of his
income in 2007 being derived from paid
digital downloads.
Whether engaging in distribution models
as an emerging artist or a megastar,
musicians are navigating a new dynamic
which promises greater creative control.
The Creative Commons licensing
scheme signifies a departure from the
traditional middle-man approach, and as
such, represents a unique opportunity to
capitalise on creativity whilst giving back
to the community.
‘thank you for
your continued
and loyal support
over the years
- this one’s on me.’
Trent Reznor
http://ninblogs.wordpress.com
creative
commons
case studies
description:
Ancient Free Gardeners are an indie-rock
band from Melbourne, Australia, using
Creative Commons licences to distribute
their music.
website:
http://ancientfreegardeners.com
Image: By Bo Hui. CC BY-SA 2.5 AUS,
http://ancientfreegardeners.com/?page_id=13
Ancient Free Gardeners
licence used: CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 Australia,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncsa/2.5/au
media:
Audio
location:
Melbourne, Australia
Overview
Ancient Free Gardeners are an indierock band in Melbourne, Australia.
The band consists of James Milsom
(vocals, guitar), Gautam Raju (bass
guitar), Callum Barter (drums) and Steve
Morfesse (keys, vocals). The band
plays original music written by James
Milsom at venues in Melbourne and (on
occasion) tours interstate.
The band takes its name from
the friendly society, Order of Free
Gardeners, which dates back to around
the 15th century. What is the actual
link between the two? The tram into
Melbourne CBD from the cemeteryside sharehouse in which the band was
established rushes past the now-defunct
headquarters of the Free Gardeners’
Melbourne branch. An impulse caused
two band members to make a visit on
one occasion, and so bizarre was the
experience that the adoption of the name
was a foregone conclusion.
Ancient Free Gardeners earn income
from playing live shows, CD sales and
digital music sales via iTunes. However,
the band is not yet self-sustaining, and
is financially supported by the members.
The band aims to reach wider audiences
Ancient Free Gardeners (Left to Right) Callum Barter,
James Milsom, Steve Morfesse and Gautam Raju
internationally through the use of
Creative Commons licences, having
previously been signatory to distribution
deals that have borne significantly
less than what the band had aimed for.
Their first album is currently being pieced
together. The singles will be available
under Creative Commons; perhaps the
whole album.
11
Licence Usage
For the self-titled release the Creative
Commons Attribution-NoncommercialShareAlike 2.5 Australia licence was
used. After almost completely selling out
of the five-track EP without recouping
expenses, the band tried another angle
for the distribution of the same songs: to
adopt Creative Commons.
The entire EP is available on their
website for free download (http://
ancientfreegardeners.com/?page_id=49)
or streaming. It is also available on the
Creative Commons distribution platform
Jamendo (www.jamendo.com/en/
album/22206) and through commercial
distribution points including Apple’s
iTunes music store.
Though no statistics are available
for downloads, the band believe they
James Milsom, Ancient
Free Gardeners
vocalist and guitarist,
took part in the
Creative Commons
Clinic Intern Program
in 2008. During his
internship, James
researched and wrote
a paper exploring the
need for new business
models for the music
sector and what these
new models might
look like.
building an
australasian
commons
‘...once you understand that with CC licences
you don’t actually have to lose all of the
rights to the music, there is nothing but
benefit that you can derive. You have next
to nothing, so you have nothing to “lose”’
James Milsom, Ancient Free Gardeners
12
Ancient Free
Gardeners
have been
experimenting
with the use of
Creative Commons
licences. Their first
release, a self-titled
EP, and their recent
single Innards
Out are both
available on their
website under a
Creative Commons
AttributionNoncommercialShareAlike 2.5
Australia licence.
derived very little benefit from the
release being on iTunes and other
online music retailers. The move to open
content licensing was a very recent one,
so the band has not yet experienced
any significant benefits from licensing
its music under Creative Commons, but
looks forward to the experiment. They
recently expanded their experimentation
with CC by releasing the single Innards
Out on the website under the same
licence as their previous release.
Motivations
James Milsom, front-person for the
band, first heard about Creative
Commons at a lecture on innovation
made by John Wilbanks, the Executive
Director and Vice President of Science
Commons (http://sciencecommons.
org). The band became aware of the
distribution and publicity potential
afforded by the Internet. First steps into
the area using iTunes failed to have the
distributive and promotional effect they
sought. But since making their music
available free for non-commerical use
they have gained from several significant
promotional opportunities such as a
feature on the Obscuresound music blog
(http://obscuresound.com). Equally, they
negotiated a synchronisation licence
with LonelyGirl15 (www.lg15.com/
lonelygirl15/?p=452) for the use of the
track ‘I am not a shipwright’ which would
ultimately be viewed more than 60,000
time. Despite this increased exposure
they still only saw a minor rise in iTunes
sales.
The Creative Commons AttributionNoncommercial-ShareAlike 2.5
Australia licence was chosen because
the band wished to reserve their right
to attribution. Further, having licensed
work previously and experienced fairly
severe difficulty in generating any
profit through independent music, the
band wished to reserve their right to
commercially license their music should
the opportunity arise. Said Milsom:
Image: self-titled EP artwork by
“For the thousands of
bands just like us, once you
understand that with CC
licences you don’t actually
have to lose all of the rights to
the music, there is nothing but
benefit that you can derive. You
have next to nothing, so you
have nothing to lose.”
creative
commons
case studies
Andrew Garton
description:
Andrew Garton is a prominent Australian-based writer, producer and digital media
adviser who widely employs and advocates the use of Creative Commons licences.
website:
http://agarton.wordpress.com
licence used: Website/Blog: CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 Australia, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc-sa/2.5/au and Flickr: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Generic, http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0
media:
Audio, Video, Text, Images
location:
Australia
Andrew Garton (http://agarton.
wordpress.com) is a prominent
Australian-based writer, producer
and digital media advisor who sits at
the forefront of new media practice
and community cultural development.
A passionate advocate for Creative
Commons and open content licensing,
Garton works across a number of
projects which express the aims of
inclusivity, sustainability, and respect
for local context. As the current
Managing Director of the online and
community media group, the Association
for Progressive Communications –
Australia, (apc.au) (http://apc.org.
au), Garton places focus on building
sustainable IT infrastructure and
community-based media based
initiatives in Australia, South East Asia,
and the Pacific Islands. For example,
apc.au consults on delivery platforms to
the Melbourne City Council – supported
Home Lands project (http://wiki.apc.
org.au/index.php?title=Home_Lands).
Home Lands intends to assist young
refugees to reconnect with their
dispersed communities through an
innovative Internet television programme.
In addition, Andrew serves as
Secretary of the Executive Board of the
international Association for Progressive
Communications, is a member of the
Arts Law Consortium of Victoria, and
a founding member of Open Spectrum
Australia (http://openspectrum.org.au).
Garton commenced his career at age
14, participating in community and public
access media and contributing to the
experimental music scene(s) in Sydney,
Australia. Performing and producing as
synthesist, saxophonist, and spokenword performer
from the late
1970s, he played
with punk/soul
band Private
Lives (19791983) and fusion/
improvisation
outfit Lingo Babel
(1985-1987). In
the late 1980s
he formed the
acoustic-based
White Punks on
Hope and the
jazz/punk trio,
Return from
Nowhere. For
ABC Classic
Radio's The
Listening
Room (now
off-air), Garton
13
Andrew Garton
Image: By Garton. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Generic, www.flickr.com/
Overview
Image: By Garton. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Generic,
www.flickr.com/photos/andrew-garton/2547023611
building an
australasian
commons
Andrew Garton introduces the Remix Forum for VIDEO SLAM 02
14
performed Sensorium Connect (www.
abc.net.au/arts/room/sensorium),
the first generative sound piece for
Australian radio and Internet in 1997,
in collaboration with performance
artist Stelarc (www.stelarc.va.com.au).
Composer of numerous documentary
soundtracks, interactive installations
(both online and offline), and publisher
of articles on independent media,
generative music and radio art, Garton’s
composition and performance has
been characterised by employment
of streaming technologies, generative
sound works and collaborative, crossdisciplinary approaches, exploring
broader interpretations of screen
culture and the moving image. Andrew
releases his various projects through the
Secession (http://secession-records.org)
label. Succession’s website is licensed
under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Generic
licence.
Under the auspices of Toy Satellite
(http://toysatellite.org), Andrew has
produced several of the earliest
audiovisual streaming projects in
Australia, contributing to internationallyacclaimed and award-winning sound
works and generative compositions
commissioned by both the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and
ORF/KunstRadio (Austria). In 2001
he produced Undercurrents, which
launched the Taipei International Arts
Festival. This piece was subsequently
commissioned for performance at the
first multimedia event to be hosted by
the Melbourne International Film Festival
(MIFF) in 2001. It was further performed,
in part, for the Fringe Fashion Awards
(Melbourne), Multimedia Arts Asia
Pacific (MAAP) (Brisbane), the
Melbourne International Arts Festival
and the Electrofringe (Newcastle, NSW).
Furthermore, in 2003, Andrew was
commissioned to produce a situationistinspired interactive work, D3, for the
Australian Centre for the Moving Image
(ACMI), where he spent two years as
interactive media consultant.
In 2005, Garton accepted the role as
Open Channel’s (www.openchannel.
org.au) inaugural Program Director,
effectively relaunching the 35-yearold organisation. The new programme
of activities included the Creative
Commons-inspired VIDEO SLAM (www.
openchannel.org.au/blogs/videoslam),
the Certificate III in Screen course,
Producing for Community TV, the
FRAMED lunchtime seminar series and
the community mobile movies initiative,
Talking Docklands: Video Quilt.
Licence Usage
Andrew is a strong supporter of Creative
Commons. His initial website and blog
were licensed under a CC BY-NCSA 1.0 Generic licence, now CC BYNC-SA 2.5 Australia licence, and his
photographs on Flickr (www.flickr.com/
photos/andrew-garton) are licensed
under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
For Melbourne Arts Law Week
2007 (www.artslaw.com.au/events/
PastEvents/VICArtsLawWeek2007.
asp), Garton created the Open Channel
VIDEO SLAM (www.openchannel.org.
au/blogs/videoslam), ‘a unique event in
that it not only provides a forum for the
open content philosophy, it’s host to a
hybrid form of production where people
from across many arts disciplines can
meet, network and make something…
together!’ As a collaboration with
the Creative Commons Clinic and
creative
commons
case studies
Andrew performed at the inaugural 2006
Creative Commons Australia Salon
(http://creativecommons.org.au/ccsalon),
incorporating content from across the
Australian Creative Commons, such as
images from the CCau Flickr pool (www.
flickr.com/groups/ccaustralia) established
for the event. Garton chronicled this event
in his Reprise (http://agarton.wordpress.
com/2006/12/01/ccsalon-reprise).
Motivations
On 30 March 2007, Andrew addressed
the Queensland University of
Technology’s Creative Commons Clinic
(ccClinic) with a provocative presentation
titled Are We Insane? (http://agarton.
wordpress.com/2007/04/05/are-weinsane). In this, he expounded on
humanity’s tendency under the effects
of globalisation to mass-produce items
so they appear as mirror images,
being ‘manifestations of our liberal
economies… which at the extreme…
ensure a McDonald’s in every capital
city, the same clothing labels on every
back, brands on every t-shirt and Big
Brother haircuts in every pub across
the country – what I’m talking about is
homogeneity.’
their work to be made in perpetuity
under OCL, an artist kicks at the core of
globalisation’s founding beliefs.
When asked why he chooses flexible
licences such as Creative Commons,
and how he is able to make money via
the initiative, Andrew responds that:
‘Just as we have to think of
different ways of living, so too
do we need to think of different
ways of earning an income. I do
not think it is possible to earn the
kind of money we have come to
expect from creative industries
by merely posting our content
online. In addition, we can no
longer afford to live as we have
done so, as our forefathers
have done… we just do not
have the resources to support
this. As such, I feel tools such
as Creative Commons are part
of the discussion we should be
having about our lives, how we
live, how and what we learn and
the mechanisms required to
support innovation and creativity,
that which sustains life, gives it
meaning and purpose - a lifetime
of learning rather than a lifetime
of uncertainty.’
15
Ultimately, Andrew sees the CC
movement as doing more than offering
cool sampling licences: ‘They are
contributing to a revitalization of
creativity and cultural development as
a collective effort. It ensures diversity,
sustains it and keeps our fans free of
fines and some of them even out of jail.’
Andrew Garton performing at the Australian ccSalon 2006
In vociferous response, Andrew
perceives flexible licensing as
challenging such overarching concepts
of ownership – by allowing copies of
Image: DSC-8368-version 2 by yinyang. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Generic, www.flickr.com/photos/albertyinyang/309524021
EngageMedia, the Victorian Arts Law
Consortium and Melbourne’s Horse
Bazaar, its focus rested on flexible
licences for the creation of new works
that are given back to the community
from which the material came. The
second VIDEO SLAM, ‘Appropriate
Original,’ saw the creation of four unique
shorts, two of which were produced with
no copyright restrictions what so ever,
all four being launched at the innovative
Remix Forum (http://agarton.wordpress.
com/2008/05/25/vs02-remix-forum), also
conceived and produced by Andrew.
building an
australasian
commons
Audiophile
description:
Audiophile is an Australian online
repository of interesting soundbites.
website:
www.audiophile.org.au
licence used: CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 Australia, http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncsa/2.5/au
16
media:
Audio
location:
Australia
Audiophile catalogue page, July 2008
Overview
Licence Usage
Audiophile is an Australian not-forprofit which publishes audio works by
young and emerging producers. Topics
include social justice, the environment,
Indigenous
issues, the arts,
and popular
culture. Audiophile
showcases field
recordings, cultural
features, radio
plays, social
documentaries,
audio postcards and
experimental sound
designs.
Contributions to Audiophile are
published under the Creative Commons
Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike
2.5 Australia licence, and are available
for free download unless otherwise
specified.
‘Creative
Commons offers
an important
option for
people to
distribute their
work around the
world without
limiting their
right to some
control over their
creative output ’
Audiophile
provides publishing
opportunities for
emerging media
producers and aims
to pay professional
rates for production
through a limited
number of
commissions.
Shyam, Founder of Audiophile
Motivations
Audiophile emphasises contributions
which engage with their surroundings,
collecting audio recordings which reflect
creators’ own experiences. The site
offers a way to profile recordings which
may not otherwise be heard, placing an
emphasis on documentary format rather
than music, and the exploration of social
justice and environmental issues.
The founder of Audiophile, Shyam, told
Rachel Cobcroft from CCau via email
interview in January 2008 that he had
first heard about Creative Commons
through a friend who is a graphic
designer and fellow artist about three
years previously. Shyam emphasises
the flexibility and control that CC gives
to artists about the distribution and
commercial use of their works.
creative
commons
case studies
Jonathan Coulton
description:
Jonathan Coulton is an independent and unsigned singer-songwriter who utilises
Creative Commons licences to help promote his music via free downloads.
website:
www.jonathancoulton.com
licence used: CC BY-NC 3.0 Generic, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc /3.0
Audio
location:
United States of America
Overview
Jonathan Coulton is a singer-songwriter
based in America. Coulton refers to his
music as an experiment in the new ways
in which content will be distributed and
disseminated as a result of the Internet.
His rationale, in his own words, ‘I give
away music because I want to make
music, and I can’t make music unless
I make money, and I won’t make any
money unless I get heard, and I won’t get
heard unless I give away music’ (www.
jonathancoulton.com/faq#Who). In 2005,
Coulton began a project titled Thing a
Week, where he wrote and released a
new song on his website every week
for a year (www.jonathancoulton.com/
primer/thing-a-week). The project was
aimed at getting publicity for Coulton’s
music, and several of the songs including
‘Flickr’ and ‘Code Monkey’ were big
Internet hits. The Thing a Week project
was released via a weekly podcast, with
each song being available under a CC
Attribution-Noncommercial licence.
Coulton has all of his music available
to stream on his website, with many
songs also available for free download.
Customers can then buy songs in either
MP3 or FLAC format for $US1 and
albums for between $US5 - $US10.
Customers can also make donations
via Pay Pal or Amazon, buy physical
CDs through online distributor CD Baby,
download songs as ringtones for free, or
buy t-shirts, books and games from the
merchandise section. There are even
karaoke versions available of some of
the songs. Evidencing his enthusiasm
for engaging fans, Coulton has also
performed concerts in the virtual world,
Second Life (http://creativecommons.
org/weblog/entry/6056).
Licence
Usage
17
Jonathan Coulton
The licence
adopted for all
Coulton songs
is Creative
Commons
AttributionNoncommercial
3.0 licence.
Coulton highlights
the importance
he places on
allowing his
fans to have the
chance to use his
work in whatever
way they choose,
including
remixing and
adding to his
work (www.
jonathancoulton.
com/faq#Use).
Image: By Dale May. Used with permission.
media:
building an
australasian
commons
‘Creative Commons is the
most powerful idea that
I’ve heard since they told
me there was going to be
a sequel to Star Wars.’
Jonathan Coulton, www.jonathancoulton.com/faq#CC
18
Though unable to release any statistics,
Jonathan says in an email interview
with James Milsom on 5 April 2008,
that some of his songs have been
downloaded hundreds of thousands
of times, and 45% of his income in
2007 was from paid digital downloads.
Jonathan’s content has been used
in music videos made by fans and
posted on YouTube, subsequently
receiving (in some cases) over a million
hits. Fans have also created cover
versions of his songs, artwork, dances,
plays, card games and even guitar
instructional videos. Coulton says that
this sort of outcome is very satisfying
and validating, but more importantly
from a business point of view, such
enthusiasm from fans has meant that
he has received a great amount of free
publicity.
Motivations
Jonathan Coulton heard about open
content licensing through his previous
work writing software. He heard
Lawrence Lessig speak at the PopTech
conference in 2003, and was sold
on the Creative Commons rationale
immediately.
When asked about the benefits of
licensing his music under CC by
Wagner James Au for New World
Notes in September 2006, Jonathan
responded:
‘It’s gone very well for me.
At first, even though I was all
fired up about the possibilities
of CC, I still had that panicky
lizard-brain fear about file
sharing. I can understand why
it’s a hard thing for people in
the industry to get over – I
totally sympathise. But at least
for someone in my position,
it’s the best thing I could
have done. Every month I get
more traffic, more donations/
sales, and more fans. I’m
quite certain that having a CC
license on all the music has
really helped that process. If
someone who’s never heard
my music before gets a free
mp3 (or twenty) and likes it,
chances are they’re going to
pass it along to some friends,
blog about it, maybe even
make a video for it. Each one
of those outcomes means
more exposure, more fans,
and more chances for people
to pay me – something that
wouldn’t have happened
as easily if the music was
all locked up with DRM and
the full battery of copyright
restrictions.’
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/09/
the_second_life.html
Also, while understanding the
significance of being able to give
music away legally, Jonathan sees the
importance of protecting some rights in
the music; the noncommercial aspect
of the licence he uses serves this
purpose well. He sees it as important
for musicians to reserve their right to
commercially license their content if an
opportunity to do so comes their way.
Jonathan uses the Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 licence.
Following trials using licences that
incorporated the ShareAlike provision,
Jonathan found that it was too difficult
to monitor whether people were indeed
‘sharing alike’ and licensing derivative
content in the same manner that he
had licensed the original. For that
reason, he abandoned use of the
ShareAlike provision.
creative
commons
case studies
Creative Commons Music
Collaboration Project (CCMCP)
description:
CCMCP provides musicians
with applications to contribute to
collaborative audio projects.
website:
http://ccmcp.info
licence used: CC 3.0 Generic Suite, full copyright and
Public Domain Dedication.
media:
Audio
location:
Global
Overview
The Creative Commons Music
Collaboration Project (CCMCP) was
developed by Yoav Givati to create
a community among musicians who
share their songs, beats, and ideas
with other artists who will tweak, mix,
edit and expand upon their works in
infinitely creative ways. Offering a
collaborative platform of applications,
tools, and discussion fora, the project
emphasises a holistic music education
through interaction between professional
musicians and beginners, assisting
users in the interpretation of music
notation, playing technique, theory, and
skill development such as writing lyrics,
tablature, and understanding technical
equipment and recording software such
as Logic, SONAR, and Audacity.
The CCMCP Library application
underpinning the site is a collaborative
music engine which allows subscribed
users to contribute to listed musical
projects. Within CCMCP’s Project area
(http://ccmcp.info/project), artists are
encouraged to outline how they wish
others to interpret their works, which are
streamed and available for download.
Each project consists of a number of
CCMCP homepage, July 2008
files, which comprise an individual track,
such as for lead guitar or drum, or a
multi-track composition. If a musician is
inspired by a particular project, they are
encouraged to download it according
to its specified copyright terms, and
embellish it in their own way. Once
the new track has been uploaded, the
musician will be able to receive feedback
via comments and ratings from other
members. CCMCP’s Forums (http://
ccmcp.info/forums) facilitate discussions
on the collaborations, enabling education
through interaction.
The CCMCP project is currently in beta
form. Since its commencement on
20 May 2007, CCMCP has reportedly
taken on several different shapes.
Wanting to remove the distance between
musicians via the Internet – to recreate
the experience of jamming live – the
project has employed technologies such
as skypecasts to content management
systems, and custom-built applications
for research and development. Currently,
CCMCP developers are in the process of
building a platform to replace the present
implementation that will further embody
the ideas of openness, community,
and education. Founder Yoav Givati
envisages creating a system for live
gigs, podcasts, classifieds and show
19
Content that is
part of CCMCP is
available through
a downloadable
desktop application
that utilises Adobe
Integrated Runtime
(AIR) (www.adobe.
com/products/air )
to access the CCMCP
catalogue.
Adobe AIR lets
developers use proven
web technologies to
build rich Internet
applications (RIA) that
deploy to the desktop
and run across
operating systems.
building an
australasian
commons
listings, and aspires towards releasing
compilation albums of work created on
the site. The project plans to go live in
the next few months under the domain
Ear-Drum.org.
20
In an email interview conducted
with Rachel Cobcroft from Creative
Commons Australia, CCMCP creator
Yoav Givati explains that to date,
the CCMCP has attracted attention
from two main demographics: web
developers interested in progressive
web technology and musicians who
are tired of the severe disconnect
of online music ‘communities’ like
MySpace (www.myspace.com) and
Bandspace (www.bandspace.com)
(before it became a ‘waiting page’),
where users are walled off from one
another and where musicians are forced
to market themselves, thereby creating
a somewhat insincere, competitive
environment.
Statistics
Since CCMCP’s launch, the site has
attracted more than 2000 unique
visitors, of whom approximately 150
have registered to test and use the
application. Ranging from Mumbai,
‘I started developing with
the intention of exposing
people to music; the idea
that everyone should have
free, unfettered access to all
kinds of music.’
Yoav Givati, Founder, CCMCP
www.chalk-it-out.com/causes
India to Johannesburg, South Africa,
visitors to the site are diverse. Most
come from the United States of America,
then Canada, followed by the United
Kingdom, Italy, and Brazil. A few
enthusiastic testers have gone beyond
the simple feature requests, and through
discussions over Instant Messaging have
provided the main development team
with in-depth examinations of desired
features and functionality of the site.
Licence Usage
With the new implementation of the
CCMCP site, Yoav Givati and his
development team intend to allow users
to select among the six main Creative
Commons licences in addition to a
Public Domain option and the standard
© All Rights Reserved. The goal for
this implementation is to give users the
freedom to do whatever they want with
their content and whatever is welcomed
with each other’s.
The CCMCP’s current Terms of Use
(http://ccmcp.info/terms.html) specify
that user-submitted audio is subject to
copyright or the CC licence the user who
uploaded it assigns to it. By uploading
copyrighted materials such as audio and
images, the user grants the CCMCP
the right to stream and display that
copyrighted material on CCMCP for as
long as the user keeps it on CCMCP.
Users have the right to remove their
content whenever they wish, and the
CCMCP does not claim any ownership
over such content.
As explained on the CCMCP Project
site (http://ccmcp.info/project), the
CCMCP Library is technically a Rich
Internet Application (RIA) which allows
the subscribed user to access the site’s
music library, as well as contribute to
creative
commons
case studies
that library through the addition of their
own original or transformative tracks.
The library is catalogued and viewable
by projects, which carry descriptions
specified at point of creation. Each
project can have unlimited files added by
an unlimited number of people.
Each project file (in MP3 format) is
assigned a Creative Commons licence
or full copyright, which gives the
musician control over how others use
and manipulate their works. Artists
can also specify uses through adding
detail to the description box about
how they wish their work to be used.
The description as to how others can
sample or create derivative works can be
changed during the file’s initial upload or
at any time thereafter.
The RIA is accessable via the main
website or can be downloaded onto a
PC or Mac. The RIA is part of a new
breed of Internet application that exists
independently of web browsers. It
requires the Adobe Integrated Runtime
(AIR) environment to run.
Motivations
CCMCP creator Yoav Givati first heard
about Creative Commons after entering
the world of web development in mid2006, when he was introduced to
the idea of flexible rights for creative
content. Yoav immediately began
reading up on open source, GPL,
copyleft, and Creative Commons.
Creative Commons appealed to him not
only because the licences seemed to
reach the widest spectrum of users, but
he also found that in reading through the
documentation and browsing through
different implementations there was a
distinct sense of openness that other
alternatives lacked. In addition, Yoav
found a sense of community where it
seemed possible for the licences to
be applicable across the depths of the
Internet regardless of region, nationality
or legal system.
‘The idea that I – not some
governing body – could decide
how others can interact with my
work and that declaring those
rights didn’t involving sending
off for some customized
patent or making some vague
declaration of insertion into
the public domain. …Creative
Commons was applicable to so
much more than just computer
code, and as a musician, artist,
and naïve programmer, the wheels
in my head just began spinning
and aren’t likely to stop soon.’
Yoav Givati, in email conversation with
Rachel Cobcroft from CCau, 12 April 2008
CCMCP’s stated purpose is to create
a music-rich community focused on
education and musical experimentation,
and to deliver this environment to
anyone with Internet access. The
concept underlying CCMCP is thus
a simple one: to take the feeling of
an intimate yet open community and
provide access to knowledge, granting
users the freedom to get knee-deep in
each other’s creative works for the sake
of learning, sharing, and connecting.
Yoav adds:
‘A big part of that freedom is
allowing users to define their
own boundaries for a given
work, rather than forcing them
to adopt someone else’s
view of the optimum rights for
sharing. We believe the creator
should define the purpose
for their work and based on
our feedback we can say that
people believe the purpose of
creating is to share, at the very
root, for the sake and in the
hopes of enriching someone
else’s experience.’
21
building an
australasian
commons
Jamendo
description:
Jamendo is a music platform offering artists the ability to promote, publish, and be
paid for their music while still making it available for download under Open licences.
website:
www.jamendo.com
licence used: Currently includes full CC 3.0 Suite (including international variations), CC 2.0 Suite
(including international variations), CC Sampling Plus 1.0, http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/sampling+/1.0, CC Noncommercial Sampling Plus 1.0: http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/nc-sampling+/1.0 and Free Art Licence: http://artlibre.
org/licence/lal/en
media:
Music
location:
Global
Overview
22
Jamendo is a unique music platform
aiming to assist artists to ‘promote,
publish, and be paid for’ their music.
Found May 2004 in Luxembourg by
free culture enthusiasts Sylvain Zimmer,
Laurent Kratz and Pierre Gérard,
Jamendo has established a dedicated
international community. Utilising peerto-peer distribution methods, such as
BitTorrent (www.bittorrent.com) and
eMule (www.emule-project.net), coupled
with Creative Commons and Free Art
licensing, Jamendo emphasises the
legal distribution of content. Its business
model is based on the concept that the
wide dissemination of content across
networks
leads to
popularity and
prominence:
‘Be known
and
recognized.
Spread
your music
worldwide.’
Jamendo is
the first site
to offer its
contributors
Jamendo homepage, July 2008
50% of revenue gained from advertising.
By registering for this optional
programme (www.jamendo.com/en/
static/help_revenueshare), artists
share in the site’s profits according to
their page views. In addition, Jamendo
offers the ability for users to donate
directly to their favourite artists through
a PayPal ‘tip jar’ facility. Artists receive
close to 100% of monies donated: a
small administrative fee is deducted.
This has been the first serious attempt
of a file-sharing site to provide a direct
way to compensate musicians for their
work. Furthermore, by adopting Creative
Commons, the site offers the possibility
to distribute music freely, while
preserving the basic rights of the artist.
As a portmanteau of ‘jam’ and
‘crescendo,’ the Jamendo platform
unites:
ß
ß
A legal framework to support
artists, through Creative
Commons and Free Art
Licensing;
An integrated rating and
recommendation system
adapted from iRATE (http://
irate.sourceforge.net), a
collaborative filtering system
for music;
creative
commons
case studies
ß
ß
ß
Free, simple, and quick
access to music through tag
searches;
Use of common peer-topeer technologies, such
as BitTorrent and eMule
for album download and
content streaming;
music in MP3 and Ogg
Vorbis file formats; and
Mechanisms to make direct
donations to the artists
through PayPal.
Each artist is assigned a personal
profile which includes links to their
works, information about licensing,
photos, event announcements and
user-submitted reviews. As of 5
November, 2007, Jamendo hosted
over 5000 albums and 336,000
artists. By 21 May 2008, Jamendo had
significantly increased their offerings:
featuring 9249 albums, 56904 album
reviews, and 338131 active members.
Jamendo emphasises that it is:
ß
ß
ß
A nonexclusive platform:
the artist remains the
owner of their music,
which they are free to
distribute by any other
means at their disposal.
Jamendo maintains a
strong commitment to
complementing traditional
music distribution methods,
such as CD sales.
A zero-cost platform:
Jamendo provides hosting
for free. Site costs are
kept low by using P2P
distribution. Minimal
advertising is included
on the site and included
in audio streams to raise
revenue.
A free platform: Artists
reserve the right to remove
Statistics
As of 5 November 2007, Jamendo hosted over 5000 albums
and 336,000 artists, equivalent to:
Available hours of music
Number of album tracks
Number of available artists
Number of registered artists
Number of known concert dates
Total size of distributed files
Number of distributed files
Finished BitTorrent downloads
Data transfered with BitTorrent
Number of available languages
Number of reviews
4592
70 966
336 914
196 851
2905
2.52 TB
289 418
2 310 084
106.74 TB
26
54 288
Source: www.jamendo.com/en/?p=stats
their content from the site
at any point, and are thus
not prevented from signing
exclusive contracts with
record companies.
23
Artists are encouraged to increase
their revenue by:
ß
ß
ß
embedding the Jamendo
Player or Widget featuring
their album into blogs and
websites;
advertising the link to
Jamendo on flyers, artists'
sites etc.;
spreading the word about
Jamendo: the more popular
the site, the greater the hit
count and thus the greater
the revenue.
On 29 October 2007, economist Aaron
Schiff from 26econ.com (www.26econ.
com/music-by-donation-some-data)
wrote on the progress of voluntary
donations on Jamendo, providing
statistics as follows, in addition to
the Excel file (www.26econ.com/wpcontent/uploads/2007/10/donationdata.
xls) of the data. This sits alongside
Jamendo’s donation statistics (www.
On 6 June 2008,
Jamendo announced
a partnership with
Archos, manufacturers
of the Archos WiFi
portable media player.
Through a specially
designed interface,
Archos users are able
to download anything
in the Jamendo
catalogue freely and
legally.
Image: “Archos AV500” by Michaël Boulenger, www.flickr.com/photos/
bmika/192500158, CC BY 2.0 Generic
ß
building an
australasian
commons
Images: (Top to Bottom): Cover for SaReGaMa’s single Aquarius , CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Unported; Revolution Void’s
Increase the Dosage, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported; Pornophonique’s 8-bit Lagerfeuer, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 German and
self-titled EP of Blue Haired Girl, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 France
jamendo.com/fr/get/
donation/list/donation/
data/plain/?dni=info_
common&n=all).
On analysis, Schiff found
that total donations were
small:
Jamendo currently
claims about 69,000
songs are available
for download… Over
the 22 months there
were 1,454 donations
made, for a total value
of US$21,150. So
each artist is receiving
very little money, if
anything
www.26econ.com/wp-content/
uploads/2007/10/count.png
Looking at the raw
data, people generally
make donations
of round numbers,
mostly multiples of
$5 or €5. There were
a few odd donations
though, like 5.99 or
6.49. The largest
donation was about
$204. The smallest
was $5, which is the
default minimum
donation that the
website suggests.
Across all donations
the average was
$14.55.
24
donations (across all months)
is skewed. Most donations
cluster around relatively low
values, but there are a number
of higher donations. There were
12 donations of $100 or more.
uploads/2007/10/hist.png
Attracting Venture Capital funding in
July 2007 from Luxembourg-based
Mangrove Capital Partners, an early
investor in Skype, Laurent Kratz,
Jamendo’s CEO and Co-Founder,
stated:
‘With this funding, we plan to
become the undisputed global
player of free music. More than
a music sharing platform we
are economically supporting
and promoting the long tail
of music. We have a proven
business model where music
is not only proposed for free to
end consumers but we are also
closing an increasing number
of partnership agreements and
licensing deals.’
http://creativecommons.org/
weblog/entry/7571
The lessons able to be learned from the
Jamendo site by other online publishers
(particularly e-book entrepreneurs, in
this instance) have been summarised
by Robert Nagle (www.teleread.org/
blog/?p=6138) as follows:
1
There are many content
creators willing to give their
content away;
2
Tools for distributing,
cataloguing, and rating this
are constantly improving;
3
The openness permitted by
Creative Commons offers
a way for independents to
compete against various
mainstream media operations;
uploads/2007/10/mean1.png
Jamendo hosts a diverse range
of music: from instrumental (like
SaReGaMa’s single Aquarius) to
acid jazz (like Revolution Void’s
Increase the Dosage), from
German electro (Pornophonique’s
8-bit Lagerfeuer) to French rock
(Blue Haired Girl)
There’s a slight
trend upwards over
time in the average
monthly donation, but
a linear trend is not
statistically significant
As you might expect,
the distribution of
creative
commons
case studies
4
5
Audio books can easily go
the ‘way of Jamendo,’ as
has been demonstrated with
podiobooks.com; and
Although the site has yet to
produce a lot of revenue, it
does so without DRM. This
may cause difficulties in
verification.
Nagle concludes that ‘Jamendo is an
inspiration for people in the content
creation field regardless of genre.’
Use of Creative Commons
Jamendo’s entire catalogue is available
for free download, under various
Creative Commons or (less commonly)
the Free Art Licence, the Englishlanguage version of the Licence Art
Libre, a French copyleft licence applying
to works of art.
Jamendo’s Creative Commons search
interface (www.jamendo.com/en/
creativecommons) presents thumbnails
of the albums which fall into the six
Creative Commons licence categories,
clearly showing which albums are
available for remix or commercial use.
Jamendo employs the ‘Jamloader’ tool
(www.jamendo.com/en/jamloader)
for uploads, a GPL-licensed, Python-
based open source software application
inspired by ccPublisher (http://wiki.
creativecommons.org/CcPublisher),
as used by the Internet Archive (http://
archive.org). As with ccPublisher, this
tool allows users to select an appropriate
Creative Commons licence and to tag
audio and video files with metadata
through an administrative panel (www.
jamendo.com/en/static/artists_how).
In addition, each artist’s profile clearly
details their licence terms under the
‘Your rights on this album’ section,
linking to the relevant Creative
Commons deed. It also includes a CC
logo on embedded widgets which pops
up the relevant licence badge which links
to the relevant deed.
Motivations
Jamendo allows artists to distribute
their work across peer-to-peer networks
via legally-recognised means. The site
harnesses the power of the Internet for
rapid recognition of talent, and rewards
the artist for their work through fair
compensation mechanisms. In adopting
Creative Commons, the site offers the
possibility to distribute music freely, while
preserving the basic rights of the artist.
25
‘By authorising the free
distribution of your album on
Statistics
As of 7 November 2007, the distribution of licences on
Jamendo was:
Attribution
Attribution-ShareAlike
Attribution-Noncommercial
Attribution-No Derivatives
Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives
Sampling +
Noncommercial Sampling +
Free Art Licence
As of 21 May 2008, the distribution of licences on Jamendo
was:
98
498
45
87
2694
1365
0
419
229
Attribution
Attribution-ShareAlike
Attribution-Noncommercial
Attribution-No Derivatives
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives
Sampling +
Noncommercial Sampling +
Free Art Licence
196
1163
70
167
4902
2121
129
262
222
building an
australasian
commons
these networks, you are helping
to make Peer-to-Peer tools
legitimate. And, your work will
receive additional recognition
and publicity due to the current
media attention on the subject.
You will be recognized as an
artist with mature views on
music distribution.’
www.jamendo.com/en/static/artists_why
The site's Chief Technology Officer
Sylvain Zimmer outlines the three
reasons why Jamendo decided on
Creative Commons as the site’s licensing
framework:
1
2
26
3
The flexibility of the licenses
that let the artist choose ‘how
free’ they want their music to
be.
The clarity of the “humanreadable” license page and
the quality of the “machinereadable” and “lawyerreadable” license pages.
Creative Commons is an
organization supported by
great individuals, a vibrant
community and a tremendous
growth rate worldwide.
As to users’ individual motivations to
license under CC, Dailymotion (www.
dailymotion.com), a Paris-based videosharing site, recently called upon
Jamendo’s artists and users to provide
testimonials and anecdotes of their
experience with the site.
creative
commons
case studies
Knives at Noon
description:
Knives at Noon are an indie-electricrock band based in Dunedin, New
Zealand, utilise Creative Commons to
encourage remixing of their music.
website:
www.myspace.com/knivesatnoon
licence used: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New
Zealand, http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/nz
media:
Audio
location:
New Zealand
‘The music market
is so saturated and
Creative Commons
is another way we
can reach more
people with our
music.’
Oli Wilson, synth and vocals for Knives at Noon
Knives at Noon are a progressive New
Zealand band formed in late 2007
by vocalist and guitar player, Andrew
Ketels, synth and bass player, Oli Wilson
and drummer, Tim Couch. Having just
been placed in the top 32 bands for
MTV Australia’s Kickstart Competition
and completing a national tour (finishing
up with a session at the Red Bull Live
to Air Studio in May), the group have
been prolific despite such a short time
together.
The band attribute their
success to their reliance
on modern technology and
music-sharing practices
including Creative
Commons, enabling them
to create a unique sound
as well as to build their
fan base. At one point, the
band members were spread
between Dunedin, Auckland
and Papua New Guinea,
which led to working via
the Internet and traditional
post to construct tracks.
As recounted to Jane
Hornibrook from Creative
Commons Aotearoa
New Zealand, Oli Wilson
explains:
‘Andy would send me songs, I
would add in a synth line or add
in a line, send it back to him. It
would go to and fro, then we’d
send it to Tim, he’d write some
rhythm stuff for it, and then
when we’d get back together
in Dunedin, we pretty much
rehearse and take it on the road.’
27
Their creative processes have resulted
in a debut EP of richly detailed tracks
stamped with each member’s sound.
Drummer Tim Couch says that finished
songs end up consisting of about twenty
parts of separate recordings.
Knives at Noon – (From Left to Right) Tim Couch, Oli Wilson and Andy Ketels
Image: Teri Lyn Higgins. Used with permission.
Overview
building an
australasian
commons
Creative Commons has led Knives
at Noon even further towards open
collaboration, enabling producers and
DJs around the world to sample and
remix their work. Since releasing their
tracks, the band have engaged interested
parties in the UK, America, Australia and
New Zealand who download and make
derivatives of the original tracks to form
new material. Knives at Noon welcome
others to use their work, providing
producers with the Pro-Tools recording
files to sample at will.
By embracing the potential of Internet
file-sharing enabled by Creative
Commons and hosting site MySpace
(http://www.myspace.com), the band
have attracted listeners from all over the
world in a way that would not have been
possible ten years ago. To hear Knives
at Noon online, visit their MySpace page
(http://www.myspace.com/knivesatnoon).
28
Licence Usage
Motivations
Bass and synth player Oli Wilson first
heard about Creative Commons when
he met Elliott Bledsoe from Creative
Commons Australia while visiting friends
in Brisbane. After picking up the Asia
and the Commons Case Studies 2008
handbook and Unlocking the Potential
through Creative Commons Oli was
convinced that Creative Commons would
be invaluable for Knives at Noon.
The group decision to take on an
licence reflects the band members’
preference for open sharing. Knives at
Noon feel that even though they allow
sharing and remixing of their work, the
noncommercial terms of their Creative
Commons licence will help them strive
for commercial viability through tours
and royalty payments. In fact, vocalist
Andy Ketels believes that giving fans the
freedom to share is the best way to reach
their goals as established musicians
because ‘more people are using our
music.’ Oli adds that:
Knives at Noon use a CC BY-NC-SA
‘The music market is so
3.0 New Zealand licence for their sixsaturated and Creative
track EP release. They choose Creative
Commons is another way we
Commons to allow other musicians to
remix their tracks. Already, artists such
can reach more people with our
as Future One (Auckland), Darkist (UK),
music. I like it how our ideas
Dean Lawz Brisbane, (Australia), Benny
aren’t entombed.’
Electric Brisbane, (Australia), Woosh
(Dunedin), MC Beau (Dunedin), Undertow
The band knows that ‘the Internet
(Dunedin), Module (Wellington) and
has changed everything.’ Knives at
Michael Schraa (Dunedin) are remixing
Noon have used advances in digital
tracks. While these parties cannot make
collaboration, music sharing and the
commercial use of the original or remixed
Internet as a social medium to their full
work without permission from the band,
advantage and are leading the way to
Knives at Noon are planning to release a
online creative success.
limited edition ‘remix’ tape
Benny Electric’s remix single cover and Knives at Noon EP cover
later in the year.
Since releasing their 6-track, self-titled EP under a
Creative Commons licence, Knives at Noon have seen
their tracks remixed by international and local artists
including Darkist from the United Kingdom. In Australia,
Brisbane’s Benny Electric's remix of the track ‘Get Outta
My Head’ won the Voter’s Choice for June 2008 on the
social network MySongCast (http://mysongcast.com).
You can hear his mix on his MySpace page (www.
myspace.com/ bennyelectric).
creative
commons
case studies
Magnatune
description:
Magnatune is a pioneering online
record label that uses Creative
Commons licences to promote its
catalogue with free samples of songs,
alongside a variable pricing model.
website:
www.magnatune.com
licence used: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 1.0
Generic, http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0
media:
Audio
location:
Global
Overview
Magnatune is an online record label
based in Berkeley, California that was
founded in 2003 by John Buckman.
Underpinned by the philosophy that
‘Musicians need to be in control and
enjoy the process of having their music
released’ (www.magnatune.com/info/
ethos), Magnatune aims to attract wider
exposure for its artists than they would
have achieved employing traditional
music distribution models, which in turn
enables the creation of a fan base and
gaining of income. The site supports
musicians by offering 50/50 revenue
deals within a variable pricing model,
made famous by Radiohead’s 2007 In
Rainbows release. Buyers can purchase
either MP3 copies of albums at a price
the buyer determines to be fair, ranging
between $US5 and $US18, or physical
CDs for a fixed price. Magnatune offers
streaming audio of its artists’ music for
free as a promotional ‘try before you buy’
strategy.
Allowing Creative Commons downloads
of music tracks realises John’s dream of
‘open music’ (www.magnatune.com/info/
openmusic), countering the musician’s
biggest hurdle of obscurity.
Magnatune homepage, July 2008
‘Open Music is music that is
shareable, available in “source
code” form, allows derivative
works and is free of cost for
non-commercial use. It is
the concept of “open source”
computer software applied to
music.’
Magnatune has been a leader in the
implementation of the CC+ protocol,
promoting artists’ sustained commercial
success alongside this sharing model
(www.magnatune.com/info/model). CC+
allows a significant proportion of an
artist's income to accrue from business
deals, with licences automatically
generated using forms on the website.
Licences generated are royalty free
(meaning the initial licensing fee is
on a one-off basis) and cost between
$US150 and $US5000. From both
music sales and sub-licensing, artists
receive 50% of the sale price. As at
12 January 2006, artists received, on
average, somewhere between $US1500
and $US4000 per year from Magnatune
(Linux User Magazine, www.magnatune.
com/info/press/coverage/img/lud.pdf).
John’s vision is to provide an income of
$US10,000 p.a. to a third of the artists
signed to the label.
29
In March 2005,
Magnatune began
experimenting with
music distribution by
releasing ‘Tuneplug’:
a USB portable flash
drive pre-loaded with
complete MP3 albums
from 10 Magnatune
artists.
building an
australasian
commons
Licence Usage
The licence used for all Magnatune
content is the Creative Commons
to artists using CC licences, thus
preventing any artist from the country
from being able to work with Magnatune
(or similar platforms). A major benefit
of using Creative Commons licensing
in Magnatune’s experience has been
the ease with which other
distribution platforms
such as radio station Last.
fm, and non-commercial
podcasts, can use
Magnatune content.
‘This is very exciting news about
Magnatune. This is precisely the
kind of innovation that will solve
the current crisis within music.’
Lawrence Lessig, founder, Creative Commons
www.magnatune.com/info/openmusic
30
1.0 Generic licence. This licence
provides the basis of Magnatune’s ‘open
music,’ allowing works to be shared,
made available in ‘source code’ form,
remixed, and free of cost for noncommercial use.
Music compressed to 128 kbit/s quality
is either downloadable (when chosen
as a ‘song of the day’) or streamed for
users to hear music in order to attract
them to the options of either buying MP3
files or licensing music for commercial
use. Users are invited to pass tracks
to three friends, and are permitted
to sample and remix these for noncommercial purposes. Ten percent
of the catalogue is also available as
‘source’ materials, as scores, MIDI
files, samples, and track-by-track audio
files (http://www.magnatune.com/info/
openmusic).
Magnatune is a pioneer for Open
Content Licensing in independent music,
with the company’s website providing
anecdotal evidence of success with the
use of Creative Commons licences.
However, the organisation does flag
as an issue the fact of some countries’
collecting societies acting as a barrier
Statistics
Magnatune has (at
11 March 2008, www.
magnatune.com/info/stats):
269 artists, 593 albums
and 8696 songs available. The highest
average payment made for an album
has been $US10.43. As at 11 March
2007 (1 year before writing), 70 licences
were being sold per month. Classical
music still dominates paid downloads,
contributing 30% of revenue.
Motivations
‘If I retain all rights to
everything, then I’m not
necessarily going to further
my own goals, whatever they
might be, so I’m going to open
up and let some of my rights be
available for free under certain
conditions because I find it
furthers my goals overall.’
John Buckman, CEO, Magnatune
www.openrightsgroup.org/creativebusiness/index.
php/John_Buckman:_Magnatune
Magnatune licenses under Creative
Commons primarily for promotional
reasons. Unrestricted access to content
logically allows for easier dissemination
of that content. Where other platforms
and labels online offer small samples
of songs or songs at dramatically
creative
commons
case studies
lower quality than CDs, Magnatune
uses Creative Commons licences to
enable it to allow potential customers to
listen to full, near-CD quality versions
of the songs with fewer restrictions.
Restrictions being placed on mainstream
commercial content to attempt to combat
copyright infringement are referred
to as Digital Rights Management
(DRM). Where these technologies are
designed to limit the use and transfer of
copyrighted content, Magnatune hoped
to provide ‘clean’ song files, meaning
that they could be freely transferred and
used. Reflecting this, Magnatune allows
its customers to send purchased song
files to three friends (www.magnatune.
com/info/give). The argument is that if
potential customers can hear a whole
song without any restrictions in high
quality, they are more likely to pay for the
song.
Another motivation in the creation of
Magnatune has been the need to be
selective of content. From around 400
submissions each month, Magnatune
releases about 10 albums based on
their quality (http://creativecommons.org/
weblog/entry/7002). While the nature of
many distribution platforms, especially
the social networking ones such as
MySpace, is to be specifically nonselective, Magnatune bucks this trend
and aspires to become a ‘label’ with a
reputation of quality, respecting both
artists and fans alike.
31
An in-detail study of Magnatune has
been published by the Open Rights
Group at www.openrightsgroup.org/
creativebusiness/index.php/John_
Buckman:_Magnatune
Image: “Trent Reznor, February, 2008 (Press Photo) “ by Nine Inch Nails Official, www.flickr.com/photos/
nineinchnails/2348368204, CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic
building an
australasian
commons
Nine Inch Nails
description:
American band Nine Inch Nails (NIN)
rocked the music establishment by
releasing its last two albums under a
Creative Commons licence.
website:
http://nin.com
licence used: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 USA,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-sa/3.0/us
Media:
Audio
Location:
United States of America
Overview
32
The first 9 tracks
of Ghosts (titled "1
Ghosts I" through
"9 Ghosts I") are
available as a free
download from
the Nine Inch Nails
website.
All 36 tracks on
the album were
released under a
Creative Commons
AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike 3.0
United States
licence, meaning
people who had
purchased the full
album were free
to distribute the
album under the
terms of the CC
licence.
On 2 March 2008, prominent and
polemic American noir rock band
Nine Inch Nails (NIN) (http://nin.com)
departed from previous music industry
management practices by releasing
Ghosts I-IV (http://ghosts.nin.com) under
a Creative Commons licence. Giving
fans the ability to remix and redistribute
the tracks from a multitude of different
formats, Ghosts I-IV (also known as
Halo 26) encapsulates the free spirit of
the age to rip, mix, and share, creating
a community of ardent followers. The
thirty-six track album is divided into four
parts, with the first nine unnamed tracks
offered for free download, and the entire
album available for $US5 as well as in
a variety of pressings and packages at
different prices. This move has been
widely regarded as a master stroke for
the band: by selling an accompanying
$US300 ‘ultra-deluxe limited edition’
version of the album on vinyl, NIN
netted $1.6 million overnight. Expanding
the album into the ‘visual world’ a week
after release, front-man Trent Reznor
announced the launch of the Ghosts
Film Festival project on YouTube (www.
youtube.com/group/ninghosts), calling for
users’ film and audio submissions to ‘be
as creative as you like.’
Trent Reznor
Reznor explains their philosophy of free
release:
‘The end result is a wildly
varied body of music that we’re
able to present to the world in
ways the confines of a major
record label would never have
allowed – from a 100% DRMfree, high-quality download,
to the most luxurious physical
package we’ve ever created.’
http://ghosts.nin.com/main/more_info
The artistic team behind the project
included Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross,
and Alan Moulder, with instrumental
contributions from Alessandro Cortini,
Adrian Belew, and Brian Viglione.
Collaborating with Artist in Residence
(A+R, www.ainr.com), Rob Sheridan
moulded the album’s accompanying
visual and physical aesthetic.
Two months after the release of Ghosts
I-IV. Nine Inch Nails (http://nin.com)
licensed a second album, The Slip
(http://theslip.nin.com) under Creative
Commons. Pitched as ‘one hundred
percent free’ by Reznor, The Slip (also
creative
commons
case studies
Pre-empting the album release, the
single Discipline was distributed freely
via the official NIN site in April 2008, and
a second, Echoplex, was released for
free from iLike (www.ilike.com). To cater
for the substantial fan base interested
in acquiring sought-after merchandise,
NIN released the album on vinyl and
CD under a variable pricing model over
the American summer period. The site
states 'The Slip will remain free for
download indefinetely' (http://theslip.nin.
com/physical).
Licence Usage
NIN actively encourages its fan base
to engage with its music, through
redistribution, remixing (http://remix.nin.
com) and user-generated film festivals
(www.youtube.com/group/ninghosts).
As with Ghosts I-IV, The Slip is licensed
under a Creative Commons AttributionNoncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United
States licence. NIN’s intention with this
release is clear, as per the site (http://
dl.nin.com/theslip/signup):
‘we encourage you to remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc.’
In contrast to services which
prevent re-distribution of
tracks, all files are 100%
DRM-free.
Motivations
Utilising Creative Commons
has been a successful
strategy for NIN: the
manoeuvre has accrued
substantial profit and
prominence in the worldwide press. As widely
reported on 4 March
2008 (www.techdirt.
com/articles/20080304/
162842435.shtml), the $300
ultra deluxe edition of Ghosts
I-IV, limited to 2500 copies,
sold out in a matter of days.
With fans still keen to seek
‘personalisation, authenticity,
embodiment’ in the hard
copy, Kevin Kelly notes that
considerable incentives
remain surrounding items
released for ‘free’ (www.
kk.org/thetechnium/
archives/2008/01/better_
than_fre.php). In relation to
the release of the deluxe
editions and associated
products, Mike Linksvayer
observes:
‘If an artist typically makes
$1.60 on a $15.99 CD sale,
profit from sales of the limited
edition already matches
profit from a CD selling
hundreds of thousands of
copies.’
http://gondwanaland.
com/blog/2008/03/04/
nin-ghosts
33
Images: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US, http://ghosts.nin.com
known as Halo 27) has been proclaimed
as a further challenge to the music
industry, defining an alternative path
for musicians interested in the selfpromotion of works. Available for digital
download in an array of formats – MP3,
lossless FLAC, MP4 (M4A), and the
impressive higher-than-CD quality 24bit, 96kHz WAV files via torrents – the
ten tracks are readily remixable via their
multi-track audio source files available
on the Nine Inch Nails Remix site
(http://remix.nin.com). The release also
includes a PDF with artwork and credits.
Included in the downloadable
package for Ghosts I-IV is a PDF
of album artwork. These are four
of the images included in that
document.
building an
australasian
commons
Celebrating their North American tour
with a free EP sampler Lights In the Sky
(http://dl.nin.com/lightsinthesky/signup)
Trent Reznor adds:
‘If you like what you hear, be
sure to show up early to the
show (and please remember
to support them by purchasing
their music, if so inclined).’
http://ninblogs.wordpress.com/
2008/06/05/new-band-new-tour-sampler
Evident throughout entries such as
Wired Magazine’s Listening Post (http://
blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/nineinch-nails.html) announcing the release
on 5 May 2008, reactions from the fans
continue to be strongly positive:
34
‘Reznor is the man!!!!! I swear
I am going to buy his next (for
sale) studio album just b/c he
is so f#$%ng cool’
Glenn
‘And it’s another epic victory
for Reznor. Three albums in
practically a year, and all of
them absolutely stellar. The
man knows music, plain and
simple. I’ll be picking up a vinyl
copy come July.’
McTool
In response to these statements of fan
fealty, ‘the constant skeptic’ notes:
Notification of the CC licence on Ghosts I-IV
‘@glenn that is exactly what
Reznor is hoping he will do,
convince his fans that he is
the man so that the next time
something is for sale they will
buy it up. It is called selling
free, and it works every time,
especially in the online arena.
Still, it is a masterful move
and shows that he knows how
to manage his brand better
than anyone else out there
right now, besides maybe
radiohead.’
Emphasising the importance of tour
promotion and the smartness of this
strategy in ensuring ongoing revenue
streams, RandomCake responds:
‘@the constant skeptic, Well,
I’m not sure Trent really
cares about every day record
sales these days, these free
downloads really help with
tour sales, and tours are a lot
more profitable than CD sales,
then there are the limited
edition items such as vinyl
and numbered CDs which
really help to rake it in (Ghosts
had an ‘Ultra Limited Edition
Package’ at $300, and there
were 2,500 of them so that’s
$750,000 made there!) Then
there are other options, so
without selling huge quantities
there is large profit, and by
giving away large quantities he
gains mass appeal! Win win all
round!’
In the week following this release, NIN
led Amazon.com’s MP3 chart, with
Radiohead coming in at number 5
(http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/03/
nine-inch-nai-1.html). As Wired’s Eliot
Van Buskirk muses: ‘There’s a lesson
for the labels in there somewhere.’
creative
commons
case studies
Pocketclock Records
description:
Pocketclock Records are an independent
music label based in Melbourne, Australia,
focusing on experimental pop.
website:
www.pocketclock.org
media:
Music
location:
Melbourne, Australia
Overview
Pocketclock Music is a small,
independent record label based in
Melbourne, Australia. Established in
2003 to represent the ‘sound of young
Melbourne,’ Pocketclock’s focus is
distinctly experimental pop. Each
featured musician offers free downloads
on the site under the Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 2.1 Australia
licence, alongside the occasional
promotional video. Pocketclock also
provides artists with a mobile recording
facility to ‘convert your sound to golden
impulses’ (http://pocketclock.org/studio.
html), and has supported several
local mastering/editing and production
projects.
Talkshow Boy (TSB, also known as
Adrian K-Sahara) is a 22 year-old
musician who hails from Melbourne.
In his own words, ‘He plays intense
and complicated electronic new pop
songs about love, being tuff, and
how people act towards one another’
(http://pocketclock.org/artists.html).
In November 2007, TSB released a
new record TESTOSTERONE (http://
pocketclock.org/releases/cl007.html).
Over 19 tracks, TSB ‘pushes the
romantic, aesthetic and political agendas
to the sounds of cute majorchordal
breakbeats, tiny
melodic cutups and anemic
blastbeats.’
Poland (www.
myspace.com/
lazyholland) plays
primitive DSP pop music with ‘loops as
long as your arm’ (http://pocketclock.
org/artists.html). Informed by the
folk and pop traditions, Poland takes
her influences from outsider music,
house, abstract jazz, video games,
and storytelling, amongst other places.
Poland’s self-titled EP (http://pocketclock.
org/releases/cl005.html) consists of
four tracks, culminating in ‘Random
Pop,’ which featured on Brothersister’s
(www.brothersisterrecords.org)
international experimental pop
compilation titled A fifty gallon drum of
savage customs fresh flesh and random
pop (www.brothersisterrecords.org/
brothersisterrecords/comp.html).
Also featuring on the Brothersister
release with the title track ‘Fifty gallon
drum,’ Pompey (www.myspace.com/
pompeycasmilus) pitches himself as a
‘young man making noisy, polyrhythmic
pop and sounds, steeped in arch
sentimentality and linked in ways to
environmental sounds, girl groups,
primitive music, studio - as-instrument,
etc.’
Image:
licence used: Creative Commons BY-SA 2.1 Australia,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bysa/2.1/au
Talkshow Boy
35
building an
australasian
commons
Pocketclock
currently represents
three artists:
Talkshow Boy (TBS)
(www.pocketlock.
org/talkshowboy),
Poland (www.
myspace.com/
lazyholland) and
Pompey (www.
pocketclock.org/
pompey). The label
has had previous
associations with
Lakes, Oh! Belgium
(www.myspace.
com/ohbelgium)
and Cine-milky/
Sienmilki.
36
Licence Usage
Pocketclock releases are available for
download under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic
licence. Site visitors are able to obtain
individual MP3 tracks or a ZIP file of the
entire record for free. Direct donations
to the artists are encouraged through
PayPal.
Choosing to offer Pocketclock releases
under a ShareAlike licence, founder
Rowan Mcnaught was inspired by
the creation of a ‘sort of paper trail,’
as he explained in an email interview
with Rachel Cobcroft from Creative
Commons Australia in November 2007:
‘When I find music I like, I tend
to track backwards into its
progenitors to find more of it
or work out what it is or what I
means a bit more. I’d hope that
asking anyone who used any of
the music to attribute it would
have a similar effect.’
Rowan reflects that whilst he is unsure of
outside sampling of Pocketclock music,
he is aware that the players on the label
actually take bits and pieces
from each other’s music to
remix and reuse.
‘The ShareAlike
component is really
just because I think
CC licenses are such
a friendly alternative
to the way things
usually seem to go.
It's a bit too big and weird, huge
sample clearance fees, hazy
infringement rules (what is it,
three notes? Two seconds? I
don’t understand). So it makes
sense to keep up the license if
someone uses it. I’m just quite
grateful for the alternative.’
Motivations
Pocketclock founder Rowan Mcnaught
first found Creative Commons when he
became unhappy with pretending to be a
traditional-style label.
‘It was thoroughly unrewarding
trying to sell records just to
be able to keep putting new
ones out, and it seemed I’d be
happier just sharing everything
online: by not spending up
I could just keep putting out
music I liked and a few people
could find it.’
Whilst he admits to not being very
cluey in relation to traditional legal
code, Rowan reflects that he was really
impressed with the Creative Commons
licensing scheme:
‘We are inevitably for small fry,
limited appeal type music, and
of course the Internet caters for,
and even nourishes, that. When
I found Creative Commons,
it reinforced that idea and
allowed us to stop working in
the traditional way: In some
ways I think by licensing the
music under CC, for me, serves
more to say “It’s actually OK
to give this to your friends
than anything else; I’m not so
worried about anyone misusing
the music.”
The covers of three Pocketclock releases: (Top
to bottom, left to right) Poland's self titled EP,
Pompey's Fifty Gallon Drum and Talkshow Boy Testosterone covers.
creative
commons
case studies
Postmoderncore
description:
Postmoderncore is a netlabel concerned with releasing underground New Zealand
music and other music of interest under local Creative Commons licences.
website:
http://postmoderncore.com
licence used: Creative Commons BY-NC 3.0 New Zealand, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc/3.0/nz, Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 New Zealand,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz
Music and cover art
location:
New Zealand
Overview
Postmoderncore is Wellington-based
netlabel that, in the words of founder
Sam Stephens, ‘cares about music, not
commerce.’ Established as a protest
against the commoditisation of music
and the idea that a musician needs to
be motivated by profit, Postmoderncore
believes in giving an audience to music
that deserves it, and ensuring that
the potential audience of a release
is not limited by money or production
constraints.
According to its web site (http://
postmoderncore.com/about.html),
Postmoderncore’s philosophy has been
greatly influenced by the Negativland
(www.negativland.com) fan collective
Snuggles (www.sensoryresearch.net/
thoughtconduit/news?grid=7). Founding
the label five years ago, Sam Stephens
expresses his underlying beliefs:
‘I came to the conclusion that
copyright was a tool used by
corporations to make profits,
and control artists and their
music. …Postmoderncore
is the flip side of my protest
against copyright and the idea
of music as a commodity.
I decided that the best
method for sharing the
music and accompanying
art with its audience was
to offer free downloads
over the Internet. I
also wanted to reach a
wide and international
audience.’
Operating as a self-funded
initiative, Postmoderncore
sells CDs of the music
available online, so that
the label’s artists and fans
can have physical CDs if
they wish to. This is not a
money-making exercise,
and is intended more for
promotional purposes.
Licence Usage
Artists on Postmoderncore
are offered the ability to
license under the Creative
Commons AttributionThe covers of three Postmoderncore
releases: (Top to bottom) Tangent's
A Pictorial History and The Unknown
Rockstar's Fake Ivory and Deep
Earplug Music.
37
Images: Covers of Tangent’s A Pictorial History, CC BY-NC 3.0 NZ and The Unknown Rockstar’s Fake Ivory and
Deep Earplug Music, CC BY 2.5 Generic
media:
building an
australasian
commons
‘Creative
Commons
licenses allow
your music
to spread
furthest.‘
NoncommercialNo Derivatives
3.0 New Zealand
or the AttributionNoncommercial 3.0 New
Zealand licence. Being
happy with the licences
so far, Postmoderncore
will continue to
release under Creative
Commons.
The Creative Commons
licences selected
depend upon the
Sam Stephens, Postmoderncore
wishes of the artists.
According to founder
Sam Stephens, some
of the label’s musicians are happy to
have derived works produced from their
music, and some are not, so they end
up using the according licence. Sam
intentionally uses the New Zealand
licenses to express Postmoderncore’s
ties to New Zealand, and to support the
38
CC Aoteoroa New Zealand (CCANZ)
initiative.
Postmoderncore hosts
a number of websites
for other independent
arts projects in New
Zealand including
an online store called
Dadashopping (http://
dadashopping.net)
which sells releases
from the netlabel as
well as a number of
other independent
musicians from
around the country.
After reading of the commercial use
of CC-licensed images on billboards
by Virgin Australia (such as www.
asiancanadian.net/2007/10/photoof-teenager-appears-on-australian.
html), Sam explicitly chooses noncommercial licences, so that further
use of Postmoderncore material can
be vetted by the artist(s) involved. In
Sam’s understanding, ‘This doesn’t
stop commercial use of the music; it
simply requires explicit permission to be
granted. I think it’s good to maintain this
level of control.’
Motivations
As founder of this netlabel, Sam
Stephens first heard about Open
Content Licensing through the open
source software movement.
‘When I learned about the
Creative Commons bringing
these principles to music and
the arts, I was very excited as
I already was releasing on the
Internet, and thought these
licenses had great potential,
and expressed ideas I already
had about creativity as a gift,
rather than something to be
owned and hoarded.’
According to Sam, Creative Commons
licences provide the advantage of
allowing for distribution of music by
fans, removing centralised distribution
and associated costs and annoyances:
‘They express the freedom and sharing
I want from creativity.’
As someone who is encouraging others
to release under Creative Commons
licences, Sam is careful to ensure that
artists releasing on Postmoderncore
understand the full implications of doing
so. In particular, Sam emphasises that
artists need to understand that they can
never revoke the CC licence, and once
they’ve released the album, it’ll always
be available for free, even if suddenly
they get commercial interest.
‘It means that my artists need
to not be particularly profitmotivated, and/or that they
need to have the confidence
to know that if they get
commercial interest, they can
create a new work that is as
strong as the one they just
released. My feeling is that for
an undiscovered artist who
does dream of “making it” one
day, the best thing they can
look for in the meantime isn’t
profit, but exposure. Creative
Commons licenses allow your
music to spread furthest.’
creative
commons
case studies
Topology
description:
Topology is an internationally acclaimed Brisbane-based new music ensemble.
website:
www.topologymusic.com
licence used: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.5 Australia, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-sa/2.5/au
media:
Music
location:
Brisbane, Australia
Overview
recognised as Australia’s popera diva).
Topology’s performances include
the opening concert of the Sydney
Spring Festival, where they received
the Best Ensemble Award in 1999,
an experimental Fluxus festival at the
Queensland Art Gallery, Neil Armfield’s
vision of The Marriage of Figaro at the
Sydney Olympics Art Festival, and the
Surabaya Arts Festival in 2007 (see
www.topologymusic.com/index.php/
category/concerts). Billed by Australian
Music Online (www.amo.org.au) as ‘neoclassic contemporary music explorers,’
Image: “Topology with black background” by Chris Osborne. Used with permission.
www.flickr.com/photos/55195133@N00/1489109097
Established in 1997, Brisbane’s avantgarde music ensemble Topology has
gained an international reputation as
artists devoted to the experimental form.
39
Self-described as ‘nothing if not flexible,’
Topology performs in a multitude of
venues from art galleries through to
opera houses, accompanying silent films
and playing pop concerts in 10,000seat stadia. Regularly recording for the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
(ABC), these contemporary musicians
collaborate with
Topology – (From Left to Right) Kylie Davidson, Bernard Hoey, Christa Powell, Robert Davidson, John Babbage
new music’s
leading lights,
such as Terry
Riley, John
Adams, Phillip
Glass, Michael
Nyman, and
Steve Reich,
as well as
popular
musicians
including Tyrone
Noonan (from
the awardwinning band
‘george’) and
Kate MillerHeidke (widely
building an
australasian
commons
Topology is Robert Davidson on
double bass, Bernard Hoey on viola,
Christa Powell on violin, Kylie Davidson
on piano, and John Babbage on
saxophone.
available on their site. The composers
also distribute free sheet music (www.
topologymusic.com/index.php/category/
scores).
Compositions by Robert Davidson
include Convex and Concave, a
‘contrapuntal miniature’ inspired by
the drawings of M.C. Escher, the
Karak concerto, a percussive piece
Motivations
‘I can’t see that we can
move forward in creative
work with copyright
staying as it is.’
Robert Davidson, Topology
40
using bowed vibraphone, and Big
Decisions, a documentary opera which
contemplates the dismissal of Gough
Whitlam in 1975. Saxophonist John
Babbage was inspired to compose one
of his many pieces Chop Chop whilst in
Santiago, Chile, exploring the harmony
and syncopation of Gerard Brophy and
Olivier Messiaen (for program notes
for these compositions see www.
topologymusic.com/index.php/category/
compositions).
Licence Usage
Topology has placed their album
Perpetual Motion Machine on Jamendo
(www.jamendo.com/en/album/4148)
under the genre ‘contemporary
classical’ and the Creative Commons
BY-NC-SA 2.5 licence. Individual
tracks (www.topologymusic.com/index.
php/downloads) and excerpts (www.
topologymusic.com/loudblog) are
Robert Davidson discussed his
motivations to provide a selection of
his scores and recordings to the public
with Rachel Cobcroft in February 2008.
‘The open framework suits
Topology as the sales of
albums is not as valuable
to us as the promotion of
our profile. There does
seem to have been a causal
link between using open
approaches (to MP3s and
sheet music PDFs on the web)
and our profile being raised,
though it’s hard to be certain
about this. In my own case,
there has definitely been an
increase in my revenue from
international performances of
my music as I have bypassed
publishers and given away
free scores.’
Inspired by contact with the members
of Negativland (www.negativland.com)
in San Francisco, and subsequently
by reading the writings of Lawrence
Lessig, there has been a philosophical
attraction to free culture for Davidson
also.
‘I can’t see that we can move
forward in creative work with
copyright staying as it is. I
want to make music using all
sorts of quotes and allusions,
but find it prohibitive to be
always needing to pay $20$120 per second of footage
(I signed a contract today to
pay those amounts to use
excepts). There have to be
other ways.’
creative
commons
case studies
Yunyu
description:
Yunyu is a successful, unsigned singer/songwriter in Sydney, Australia, who uses
Creative Commons licences for promotional purposes.
website:
www.yunyu.com.au
licence used: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0
Audio
location:
Sydney, Australia
Overview
Yunyu (www.yunyu.com.au) is an
understated, self-proclaimed member
of the emerging (and in many cases
emerged) generation of bedroom-based
artists who may not, without the Internet,
have ever seen the cold light of day. She
is a classically-trained musician, though
she admits to having been bored by the
restrictions of that genre. Yunyu first saw
success before ever having played a live
gig (www.yunyu.com.au/home/bio), via
the new talent competition Unearthed
(www.triplejunearthed.com), operated
by Triple J Radio (www.abc.net.au/
triplej).Following her ‘unearthing’ Yunyu
received radio airplay all over the globe,
including some chart domination on
Canadian college radio.
Yunyu uses the services of several
online businesses to sell and share
her music. For both physical and
digital distribution, Yunyu’s business
model utilises a number of different
music platforms. She has CDs and
MP3s available for purchase from US
independent distributor, CD Baby (www.
cdbaby.com). CDs are also available
from the Australian independent store
Earshot Music (www.earshotmusic.com.
au), while paid digital downloads are
available from iTunes (www.itunes.com/
store). Yunyu also offers fans the option
of buying CDs directly from her.
As with a number of independent bands,
Yunyu uses the services of a company
called Usync (www.usync.net). The
service provides a ‘backstage pass’ to
paying fans, who can then get access
to exclusive content in the ‘backstage’
area of the Usync website. The service
essentially brings ticket sales, music
sales, news announcements and other
components of a music business model
into the one location or interface.
Popular online radio
station Last.fm (www.last.
fm), relying on automated
peer-recommendation, also
assists in the proliferation
of Yunyu’s music, together
with social networking
platforms like MySpace
(www.myspace.com) and
Facebook (www.facebook.
com).
41
Yunyu
Images: stills from Yunyu’s video clip to “Lenore’s Song.”
media:
building an
australasian
commons
Licence Usage
Yunyu uses a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
2.0 licence for promotional purposes.
Two of her songs, A Prayer and Lenore’s
Song, are available under this licence
as streaming music videos (www.yunyu.
com.au/home/music#videos). Whilst her
site does not include any downloadable
tracks, Yunyu specifies on her webpage
that, though only two of her songs
are actually officially under Creative
Commons licences, she is happy for
any of her work to be used in certain
circumstances without payment but with
attribution (www.yunyu.com.au/home/
creative-commons). She acknowledges
social projects and amateur productions
as acceptable forms of use, and adds
that if someone has paid for a copy
of her work, what they then do with
the work (including file-sharing using
services such as P2P) is up to them.
42
Though unable to provide any accurate
statistics on the effects Creative
Commons licensing has had on her
success, Yunyu cites the availability of
Lenore’s Song as having been a big
help in increasing her profile. The song
is licensed under Creative Commons, as
discussed above, and its accompanying
music video has seen over 85,000
hits on YouTube (www.youtube.com/
watch?v=EzSstcvLmYM). James Milsom
from Creative Commons Australia
interviewed Yunyu on 20 April 2008,
where she stated that:
‘The ease that I have allowed
the use of my music for
podcasters, bloggers and the
like could only have helped me
make my living as a musician.’
Yunyu has been pleased with the
benefits of Open Content Licensing
generally, saying that, ‘It allows
podcasters/ indie movie makers/ poor
film students/ poor artists etc. to use
and share my music easily and without
hassle.’ This ease of (re)use has proven
extremely beneficial for Yunyu, with her
work featuring in six different student
films, including productions from as
far as Belgium and The Netherlands,
in addition to multiple placements in
podcasts, such as that of the ‘Coolshite
Crew’ (www.coolshite.net) and her lyrics
being used to teach English to Japanese
people. A fan-made video to her song
Dance so Slowly is the icing on the
cake (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCXkHfSIBc).
Motivations
Yunyu’s experience using the Internet
as a distribution and promotional
platform makes her use of Creative
Commons licences a logical step. While
the benefits of Creative Commons
licences are obvious from the above
discussion, Yunyu cites difficulties with
Creative Commons licensing as far
as other artists or content producers
understanding the licences:
‘There is, when I speak to
some creators, a certain
misconception that Creative
Commons equals public
domain which is not true. So
there is a general perception
that they have lost some
income due to putting their
work under Creative Commons
licenses but I beg to differ
because I think I have benefited
from the spread of my work
through this channel.’
When interviewed in April 2008, Yunyu
was in the middle of an international
tour, and though in some way this
sort of success can be attributed to
Creative Commons licences, (as with
all CC artists) she sees the real effects
of CC as being difficult to determine.
In advising others in the use of Open
Content Licensing, she provides a
couple of caveats: ‘I think the deal is
to choose very carefully what licences
suit you because there are limitations
to changes and Creative Commons is
generally irrevocable.’
creative
commons
case studies
OpenVoice Free PBX
description:
OpenVoice Free is a free-for-download voice-prompting service specialising in
supplying Australian voice prompts for the Asterisk open-source PBX telephone
system and other compatible IVR systems.
website:
www.openvoice.com.au/free
licence used: Creative Commons BY-SA 2.1 Australia,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/au
media:
Software, Audio
location:
Australia
Overview
OpenVoice (www.openvoice.com.au)
is a small business based in Australia,
specialising in providing voice prompting
services for the Asterisk Open Source
PBX system (www.asterisk.org) and
other compatible telephone voiceprompt systems. Such applications are
commonly used by businesses and
organisations to manage telephone
switchboards and improve business
communications. As part of its services
offered for commercial sale, OpenVoice
has created OpenVoice Free, a set of
Australian voice prompts which are
available free of charge under a Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
Australia licence.
OpenVoice Free is a comprehensive
set of voice files that businesses and
organisations can download for use
and distribute free of charge in both
commercial and non-commercial
environments. The voice files feature
an Australian voiceover artist, providing
an Australian and sometimes humorous
touch to what are often American-voiced
IVR systems. The package contains
a complete set of Australian voicemail
prompts, wake-up calls and prompts
for base Asterisk IVR functionality.
This gives the user a functioning basic
system containing the most common
announcements. OpenVoice Free is
not restricted to the Asterisk platform
and can also be used for other IVR
applications. For more demanding
IVR systems and customised prompt
packages, OpenVoice have a range of
services available for purchase.
By using Creative Commons licences,
OpenVoice have made a noncommercial contribution to the Asterisk
community and has secured a method
for legally distributing a demo of their
services that promotes their more
extensive selection of commerciallylicensed media.
Licence Usage
OpenVoice Free is licensed under a
Creative Commons BY-SA 2.1 Australia
licence. This permits commercial uses
of the media, ensures OpenVoice is
attributed and that any derivative works
are licensed in the same way. Initially
OpenVoice considered GFDL licensing
for OpenVoice Free, but found that
Creative Commons licences were a
more user-friendly alternative due to
their plain English deed and minimal
43
building an
australasian
commons
‘The licences are also
simple to understand,
and don’t require a
lawyer to decode.’
OpenVoice chose the Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence
because:
ß
Ben Buxton, OpenVoice
ß
accompanying licence documentation.
Also, unlike GFDL, Creative Commons
licences are not format specific. This
accorded with OpenVoice’s goal of
making OpenVoice Free available with
maximum ease and exposure.
44
OpenVoice report that their CC-licensed
media is downloaded at a rate of 50x
that of the commercial versions on offer,
and have found that customers who
used OpenVoice Free were impressed
enough with the service to go on to
purchase OpenVoice’s commercially
available media.
Motivations
As a fan of free software and media
licences, OpenVoice’s Ben Buxton was
impressed with the range of licences
offered by Creative Commons. In an
email interview with Emma Carroll from
Creative Commons Australia in April
2008, Ben offered the following rationale
for adopting CC:
‘We use CC licences because
they provide a range of
licensing options that suit most
copyright holders who would
like to allow relatively free
distribution of their media. The
licences are also simple to
understand, and don’t require a
lawyer to decode.’
ß
‘The licence permits
commercial use of the media.
This is important as our media
is intended for a primarily
commercial application
and we would like [to give]
businesses the ability to use
our free versions of the media.
Attribution is required, as part
of the reason for offering the
media is as a demo for our
more extensive commercially
licensed media. We’d like
those who spread the media
around to give a pointer back
to us.
ShareAlike so that derivatives
of the media retain the
commercial use guideline, and
the attribution back to us.’
OpenVoice Free is a good example of
how a company can license their media
with Creative Commons to generate
business and commercial gain, while
offering a free version for those without
the budget for commercial applications.
According to Ben’s philosophy, ‘We’d
rather people access a free version than
not at all, as it benefits them, and we are
proud to offer an Australian option to a
primarily American software package.’

new ways of doing music business

Transcription

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